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Kingdom of Loot released into early access on Steam today. For only $6.74 I felt like I could abandon my “no more early access” rule. I was really, really looking forward to playing. Unfortunately, I really wish I hadn’t.

I don’t like to trash games. I know a lot of hard work goes into making them, bringing them to market, and supporting them. But I have to say Kingdom of Loot is pretty dang rough, even for early access.

Kingdom of Loot is a 2D modern 16-bit ARPG designed with the idea in mind that it wants to be a Diablo meets Secret of Mana. Unfortunately, it really lacks any coherent gameplay at all.

The Bad

Starting with the controls, I think they’re broken. The use of a controller feels mandatory because of how all over the place the Keyboard/Mouse controls are, yet if you use a controller you’re still forced to use the K/M for some things. They feel delayed and wonky too like they don’t quite line up with the actions that happen in game.

Combat is abysmal from the start. Spam a single key in the early levels because you don’t have abilities yet, but it’s just whack-a-mole. And that one key is… spacebar to attack? Yeesh. I really hate the sounds of combat too. I had to turn them completely off so that my ears would stop bleeding.

Hitting monsters made no sense. I don’t know if it was a bug or what… but some monsters took no damage at all. I couldn’t even lower their HP. Others of the same level I killed in a few swings. I can’t make any sense of it either way.

The open-world / instanced locations idea of the overworld map is neat, but when you zone into the rooms it’s all the same every time. Mobs are just clustered in little groups and I feel as those the entire thing lacks purpose. It’s nothing more than a mob grinder.

The UI is pretty bad. The menus are access by moving your mouse to the side of the screen where they slide in. It’s tough to navigate since the cursor only works if you line it up with the options at just the right spot.

You can make the screen bigger with Shift+F, but this felt like a crummy scaling and not an actual full screen feature.

Bugs:

Chat: I couldn’t use my spacebar and chat was limited to 12 characters. Relogging a few times fixed it but it broke again.

The game glitched out several times sending my system to its knees until I managed to force quit and let me system recover. It even jacked up my sound.

Quest board was broken entirely.

Tons of latency issues.

Things I DO Like

I love the graphics. I think they are charming. I think they are perfect for a pseudo-retro game and would happily welcome more games with these graphics.

I like how town is represented in side-scrolling vs. the isometric view.

The overworld idea works, but so far they’ve done nothing with it except for navigation. This may change later in the game.

The multiplayer aspect could be lots of fun.

Verdict

Avoid it. I’m really saddened by just how bad it turned out. I might even do my first Steam refund. I don’t know. It was only $6.74, but at the same time I think it sends a message that I’m not okay with early access being this bad.

I only needed 35 minutes of play to form these conclusions, which is really quite sad. I’ll keep playing up until the point of being unable to refund the game. If I still feel the same, I’ll have to refund.

Portal Knights is awesome. It’s a sandbox RPG that reminds me a lot of Minecraft meets action RPG. The trailer will do a far better job than I come at showcasing the breadth of the game’s capabilities. Let’s watch and then I’ll fill you in on a bit of what we’ve experienced thus far.

[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/yKInhAFkGGM” width=”700″]

Think Minecraft where you can break blocks. The “world” is broken up into fractured islands must be rebuilt with portal blocks. Traveling between them leads to different biomes with different monsters, items, resources, etc.

You can build bases/homes/whatever you want. There’s crafting for weapons, spells, armor, etc., too. Classes are Warrior, Mage, or Ranger with their own abilities and gear. Combat is real time but fairly simple.

So far Graev and I have reached level 5. We’re a couple of hours in and have established a little makeshift workshops/home in a level 3 world. We use that as our home and return after adventuring out through other portals. We gather up all our loot then come back to drop it off.

With the worlds each having different resources, we find ourselves bouncing around to gather up enough copper ore and coal. Certain monsters are only on certain worlds too so things like Scales (which are used in lots of weapons we can currently craft) become a hot commodity.

I’m taking some video that I’ll highlight for you guys. Graev and I are really having a lot of fun playing — it’s up to 4-player co-op Local or steam friends.

Portal Knights is available on Steam in early access. They are patching the game fairly often, including adding controller support and soon larger worlds. Totally worth the $14.99 I paid and really shining as a sleeper hit for me. I’m really looking forward to the bigger worlds and upcoming patches.

Steam had a free weekend for Warhammer Vermintide, so Graev and I gave it a shot. Turned out to be a lot of fun! Vermintide is like Left 4 Dead in a Warhammer setting. In fact… it’s pretty much a straight ripoff with a few added features. That’s not a bad thing, but it gives you an idea of the style of gameplay you can expect. There’s also this weird Warhammer Online vibe to some of the game, but that’s not necessarily founded on anything other than a “woah this feels like L4D meets WAR” feeling which is most likely driven by the setting.

Graev searches the loot chest to decide on a weapon for this Bright Wizard.

Just like L4D, Vermintide is a co-op survival game with five heroes straight from the Warhammer setting, eat with their own unique loot and style of play. One of the key differences I see between the two games is that you can progress your character and obtain loot. Loot can be upgraded, has varying degrees of rarity, and modestly alters the way a character plays. Instead of undead and zombies, you’re escaping from the Skaven.

The Skaven comes in waves and attack you while your team of five tries to get to the objective — again, the more you think L4D the more you’ll completely get what I’m trying to explain. There’s an assassin Skavin who jumps on you and slices at you, pinning you to the ground; a Skaven that ropes you and pulls you toward him incapacitating you until you are freed; a suicidal poison skaven guy who will quickly make seeing impossible… need I go on? They’re cool, though, and they do fit the lore completely.

Vermintide is brutally hard. We struggled to not only find our way a few times, but the waves of Skaven and requirements to play really well as a team made for more than a few game overs. I like that though, and can’t imagine wanting it to be any easier. If it were any easier (even on normal difficulty) then the game would be over quickly and have almost no replay value. I didn’t find much replay value in L4D’s campaign either. In my opinion, that’s the downside of these games. They’re great fun for the first play-through, and maybe a subsequent one or two, but you can quickly find yourself desensitized to the immersion when you’ve been there and done that.

Loot is handled by rolling dice to determine the rarity of your weapon. What you get is random.

They do a great job immersing you, though. The setting is beautifully crafted, the Skaven are seemingly intelligent (most of the time), and I like how the characters all play and feel. Melee and ranged combat both work nicely. I like hewing my axe in different directions and watching the rat pieces fly. Sniping as the Waywatcher was also a ton of fun. Oh, and I do also enjoyed the blocking mechanics and how directional dodging and swinging felt useful. Combat is solid.

One critique Graev and I both share is that we don’t understand why they decided against player-controlled Skaven. That would have been a blast, and helped with replayability. Instead, it’s simply co-op vs. Skaven AI.

All things considered, Vermintide is a fun game. We’re probably going to pick it up now since it’s on a 40% off sale for $17.99 (down from $29.99) on Steam. There are also a few DLC in the $3-$9 range. We think it’s worth the price.

Steam has once again made a move toward monetizing all things games and placing themselves smack dab in the middle to take a cut. Now the Steam Workshop is going to support “paid creations” aka paying for mods.

I’m not going to come right out and say that I am in blanket opposition to all paid mods. There are some mods that end up being better than the original game. In fact, some of the best games we’ve ever seen come straight from studios who started out as being mod developers. I support this 100%. Some mods are good enough that I have and would in the future donate to the creator.

Part of what makes mods so incredible is the that they are largely free. The people who make these mods are downright passionate about what they do, and they are doing so fueled entirely by that passion. What we see from them is a result of their own desire to create the mod, make a name for themselves, or do something fun. When you monetize modding, something special there is lost. Motivations change.

Art of the Catch taken down for using someone else’s work for profit.

Modding in general has often been what feels like an open-source community. People take mods and combine them with other mods to create the perfect modding packages. Sometimes mod devs would tweak someone else’s mod and create something new. Paid mods have only been available for like 24 hours and Steam has already taken down a mod for “using the work of other modders.” This is just the beginning.

Part of what feels so slimy here is Steam. I don’t like Greenlight, I don’t like their early access stuff, and I don’t like the idea of them creating a marketplace for mods. I don’t like the precedent. Personally, I hope it doesn’t take off. I hope most game studios will not allow their games or brands to be monetized in this fashion.

Good mods do not go unrewarded or unnoticed. There are many examples where mod devs actually get recruited to work at the company that made the game they modded. I’m torn between this feeling that mod devs should be compensated for their work, and a desire to never have to pay $5 to download a map mod for Skyrim. I can’t shake my gut feeling that says, “Keen, this doesn’t seem right.”

Update: Steam is also now removing links to off-site donations. You know those “If you like this mod consider donating to the creator” solicitations? Yep, gone. Looks like Steam wants their cut.

Every year the Steam Summer Sale brings in to question a handful of troubling ideas:

Do I want to spend money on a bunch of games I might not play simply because I like to buy games on sale?

Why do I ever pay full price for a PC game?

What type of games do I really enjoy?

The first one is something I know many of you share. I think we can all identify with buying several games during a Steam Sale thinking, “aw heck yeah I’m going to play this one finally!” … then we never even remember we bought it. Happens to me every year. Not this time! Not 2014! This year I proudly declared:

That lasted until 20 minutes after the sale began.

I bought Game Dev Tycoon and Don’t Starve + DLC 2 pack (me and Graev). But that’s it! I swear! I’m not spending … who am I kidding?

Game Dev Tycoon seems pretty fun so far. I’m currently in the 3rd building you can get with about 5 million in cash. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong because sometimes I’ll make a game and get a great review, but I make it again (not twice in a row) and critics hate the game. I think this whole experience is some kind of message from an indie dev studio on the state of the gaming industry. It’s like one big documentary on the sad state of affairs. Regardless, it’s addicting and I find myself wanting to start over with the hoe that I do better each time. I’m still proud of making WarCraft 2 in my garage and making 2 million on it.

Don’t Starve has to be one of my favorite types of games ever. I can’t believe I went this long without playing. It’s like Island Troll Tribes, the custom map from WarCraft 3. I love these survival games! Something about getting wood to make a fire and having to eat before you die; So pure. Add the depth that Don’t Starve has and suddenly this is a game I can lose hours to in tiny sittings. Graev and I are REALLY looking forward to ‘Don’t Starve Together’ which is the co-op experience coming this summer free to those who own the game.

The second point is just life. Things drop in price. Understanding that point doesn’t make it any less bitter.

The third point is really what brought me to the blog this evening. I think I have more ‘fun’ playing little games in bursts. Games like Don’t Starve, Game Dev Tycoon, etc., are starting to be more fun than these massive games like MMOs. That’s not because I’m changing, etc., etc. turning into a filthy casual blah blah. I truly believe game developers are forgetting what it means to make fun games. It’s not just MMOs either. A lot of “AAA” games just aren’t fun. They aren’t games. They feel more like “projects” or “work.” Some also like to hide the fun and make the player hunt for it or wait until later. HORRIBLE IDEA! I should be having fun the second I boot up the game or else I already have one foot out the door.